digital TV bitrate monitoring websites?

Falscher Bruce

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Nov 1, 2021, 6:35:36 AM11/1/21

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I stumbled across this one:
https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=&live=36&lang=en&liste=2
It seems suss, the HD channels are almost the same as the others.
It looks like they simply divided the total bandwidth by the number of digital channels. Does anybody actually track what bitrates are?

Computer Nerd Kev

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Nov 1, 2021, 6:14:47 PM11/1/21

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Falscher Bruce <bru...@topmail.co.nz> wrote:
> I stumbled across this one:
> https://www.digitalbitrate.com/dtv.php?mux=&live=36&lang=en&liste=2
> It seems suss, the HD channels are almost the same as the others.

Comparing ABC and SBS with their HD equivalents there seems to be
an average 1Mb/s difference.

> It looks like they simply divided the total bandwidth by the
> number of digital channels.

What do you make of the graphs then? Are you sure you weren't
looking at the audio bitrates, they seem to be the same (though
ABC use higher bitrate audio than SBS for some reason)?

Assuming you weren't looking at the audio bitrate figures, for
video SD digital TV uses MEPG2 whereas HD uses MPEG4. MPEG2
requires a less powerful processor to decode, but is quite
bandwidth inefficient compared to the newer MPEG4 standard. That's
why MPEG2 is these days rarely used except for applications like
DVDs and SD TV where it's limited to the capabilities of the
specs and software of old dedicated video player devices.

So that's why the bitrate difference isn't so great compared to the
resolution difference between SD and HD, even assuming both are
maintained at equivalent quality (not over-compressed, resulting in
noticable compression artifacts).

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Sylvia Else

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Nov 1, 2021, 8:56:29 PM11/1/21

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HD is essentially dead in Australia, and has been for a long time. Free
to air TV (FTA) generally has been on a death spiral which has just been
accelerated by Covid-19 as it pushed people to sample the delights of
the streaming services. It's probably been more than a year since I
watched anything other than the news on FTA. It won't be long before the
bandwidth is applied to something more useful.

Sylvia.

Computer Nerd Kev

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Nov 2, 2021, 1:43:05 AM11/2/21

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Sylvia Else <syl...@email.invalid> wrote:
>
> HD is essentially dead in Australia, and has been for a long time. Free
> to air TV (FTA) generally has been on a death spiral which has just been
> accelerated by Covid-19 as it pushed people to sample the delights of
> the streaming services. It's probably been more than a year since I
> watched anything other than the news on FTA. It won't be long before the
> bandwidth is applied to something more useful.

Well I damn well hope not! It ain't dead on my TV.

Peter Jason

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Nov 21, 2021, 4:53:19 PM11/21/21

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Nor mine. There's still value in it with a good recorder.

keithr0

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Nov 21, 2021, 6:49:27 PM11/21/21

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This article points out that the streaming world is fracturing, and
where you just needed to pay for one service to get just about anything
now you're needing to subscribe to more and more. Then, of course,
watching OTA is anonymous, the streaming services are collecting data on
what you watch to sell to whoever.

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/11/star-trek-discovery-is-tearing-the-streaming-world-apart/